


blessed be (the mystery of love)

by seabiscuit



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Spin the Bottle, some light first date fisting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 19:48:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabiscuit/pseuds/seabiscuit
Summary: A game of spin the bottle goes sideways and Kara and Lena find each other after, then again.





	blessed be (the mystery of love)

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks as always to poiesis/weirddyke for her encouragement; I’m holding her at least partially responsible for this fic.

The story of that night is both hazy and wildly contradictory, depending on who you ask at what time. As years pass the details will be rehashed and debated over beers, in the back seats of cars, at the DEO. At their wedding in 2021, Winn says that there was Kryptonite involved and Kara’s eyes had a distinct lavender hue as she advanced on Lena, which is false. Alex, sweaty and desperate for a story to impress the woman who will be her wife on their first date, says she dumped a glass of cold tap water on their heads to end things once and for all. False, but it got Alex closer to the altar, so Kara doesn’t mention it to Rachel.

The truth of it isn’t stranger than fiction, but it’s more amorphous, difficult even for those most directly involved to pin down. That night, and everything that happened after that night, is opaque. In Kara’s opinion, that’s what makes it like magic. The world’s least graceful piece of alchemy, leaving a single piece where before there had been two spectators.

The gears are set in motion a long time before, when Kara walks into L-Corp for the first time with Clark. And there’s some work done in the intermission. But the beginning of the culminating day is mundane to the grit. Kara wakes up that morning and eats eggs, she wears loafers and straight-legged pants and a no-nonsense shirt. She texts Lena good morning knowing full well she’ll see her in less than an hour. She trims her nails over the bathroom trash so she won’t bite at them later then, feeling fine as she ever has, Kara exits her apartment.

She finds Lena at Cat’s desk scraping the bottom of a yogurt cup and looking all clammy-like at a pile of papers. When Kara raps the glass with her knuckles her head pops up and her expression eases into something like pleasure.

“Tell me that’s not the only thing you’ve had for breakfast.” Kara says, craning around the door. She only has time for a pit stop so she doesn’t slip all the way into the office. It would be to dangerous, too easy to get sucked into Lena’s orbit. Kara has been resisting that pull, with less and less success, for months now. It doesn’t help that Lena seems keen to speed her yielding.

“It’s fruit at the bottom.” Lena says in lieu of an answer. Her eyes crinkle in that way that makes Kara’s stomach warp out of shape. “Are we still on for tonight?”

“Only if you’re really committed to getting your butt kicked at monopoly.”

“I am,” Lena makes a sharp gesture at her with her plastic spoon. “Fully committed to kicking your butt, that is.”

“We’ll see, boss!” With two fingers she motions from her eyes to Lena’s, soaking up the delighted laugh that follows. The crinkle makes her stomach into a sailor’s knot, the laugh makes her lightheaded like she might pass out in a good way. Pass out and be happy she did when she woke up. Kara backs out of Lena’s office to the sound of that laugh and half skips to her desk, hand secure on the strap of her bag.

The game-night related shit talking starts in the group chat promptly at 9 AM and continues throughout the day. Kara checks in only to track the evolution of the guest list—Winn is bringing Lyra who’s bringing her friend Pax but definitely not to set her up with James, Alex is showing up with Vasquez and this girl Becca, who she’s been on one date with and feels like things could be going somewhere but needs another lesbian opinion. Becca might be bringing her friend Andrew, also definitely not trying to set him up with James.

 _Guys, is this just a house party?_ Three dots pop up immediately and Kara bites her thumbnail.

_I don’t know. But somebody is picking up plastic cups bc I’m not wasting my good wine glasses_

_It’s a gettin James laid party is what it is_

_And ping pong balls. you never know_

Kara’s eyes skirt over to Lena’s office, where the other woman is looking down at her phone. Three dots pop up again, followed closely by Lena’s response.

_send me a list and I’ll send eve out_

_our lord and savior Lena Luthor_

Kara smiles.

—-

Kara works later that night than Lena, finishing up copy so she can get tipsy in peace at “game night” (it’s a party. She’s seen Winn’s snap story). Copy is a solid, no brain required toil and Kara likes it for that reason. She can untether her mind and let it wander while she types. Tonight, she’s thinking that she hopes Lena lets herself cut a little loose under the circumstances. Kara knows she’ll probably be working all weekend, but after two glasses of wine she always seeks her out and gets all soft and touchy. Maybe they’ll even have some alone time. Kara buzzes a little and touches her fingers absently to the nape of her neck.

She’s been thinking about Lena more often as of late because of the way it makes her feel. Like running your tongue over a cut in your mouth again and again. Always having to hold back, Kara is unused to the sensation of being touched and having it resonate. But sometimes when Lena lays hands on her it’s like she could let go. Kara savors every minute, then, that Lena allows herself to be that way.

When her eyes refocus, she notices that she’s typed Lena’s name several times on the screen. So much for a no brainer.

She decides to walk to Alex’s place for the fresh air. Lena has texted a couple times asking where she is—the last one Kara doesn’t respond to. There’s a selfish streak in her that revels in being missed, and the thought of Lena’s surprise and delight when she does arrive buoys her.

With that in mind, Kara takes the steps up to Alex’s floor two at a time. She smiles when she can hear the din of the party down the hall. Alex’s neighbors are probably ready to call the landlord. Not bothering to knock, Kara opens the apartment door to a raucous chorus of her name and crinkles her face with relish, receiving a warm hug from Winn. The energy of the room tells her that most of the 15 people there have already had a few drinks and it’s time for her to play catch-up.

“How did you end up with so many people here?” She asks Alex over the music, pouring herself two fingers of alien liquor. Alex shrugs, cheeks rosy. “How’s Becca?”

“She’s over there talking to your girl.”

There’s a dark haired woman on the couch laughing at something Lena had said. Immediately Kara can tell that that’s her second glass of wine, she looks florid and cozy in her black jeans and overlarge sweater. “She’s not my girl.” Kara says with no spirit behind her words, still staring at Lena as she brings the cup of wine to her lips and sips from it, leaving her mouth with a purple hue. She has the pesky urge to be alone with her, closer to that bruise-looking lip stain.

“Yuh huh. Okay. Well, pull it together. Games start in 10.”

“What?” Kara cocks her head. “I thought…”

“Just because there are 10 strangers in my apartment, half of whom are trying to have sex with James, doesn’t mean I’m missing a chance to obliterate you guys at UNO.” Alex says as she begins to drift toward the living room and Becca. “10 minutes!”

Kara finishes her drink in two swallows, pours another and goes to use the bathroom before the game starts. It’s tucked away next to Alex’s bedroom and there’s no line, thank God, although she finds herself hoping that she’ll bump into Lena on her way out.

She hopes so hard that when she steps from the bathroom directly into Lena’s chest, she doesn’t believe it at first. But such as it is Lena is in front of her, looking up at her, cup of wine still clutched in her hand. Kara exhales.

“Hi.” Lena says in that way that she has that’s both shy and inexplicably confident. Shy with a motive. Shy like she’s trying to ply Kara with something, and if she isn’t mistaken she actually bats her eyelashes in her direction. Kara feels like her word document from earlier with Lena’s name on it 10 times in a row.

These moments keep happening. Lena coming up into Kara’s space and knocking her off balance, maybe on purpose. It’s enough to make Kara sometimes wish that her friend didn’t know about her other identity and that she still had a card in her pocket or a mystery left to her name. She doesn’t, but Lena sure seems to.

“Hi.” She stutters. “I’m happy to see you.”

“Oh, me too.” Lena pinkens and tilts forward just a touch, just so Kara can smell her perfume. “I was wondering when you’d come say hi.”

“You know. Didn’t wanna be drunk in front of my boss.” Lena snorts at that, like Kara’s just told some funny joke, and slaps her bicep gently with an open hand. She leaves it there, resting over the fabric of Kara’s shirt, and either she’s going insane or Lena palms the muscle for good measure.

Kara has a notion like she did when she was little and Alex and her friends would tell dirty jokes that went over her head, then tease her for not understanding. Something janky is flying right under her nose and she’s sure of it, she just can’t put a finger on what it is. Lena must be pulling some kind of fast one on her, with the way she’s looking and palming and running her tongue along the seam of her still-purple lips. Then again, Kara has always been for Lena hook line and sinker. Maybe this isn’t anything new.

“UNO time!” Alex’s head pops from around the corner of the hallway. “You guys ready to get your asses kicked?”

Alex does kick their asses at UNO. And Old Maid, and she beats Winn during the tiebreaker game of Scrabble they play. It’s a small but hefty miracle that they’re able to rally all 15 drunk strangers into each and every round, but as the night goes on people’s conception of an appropriate game blurs. They play King’s Cup until it’s deemed to dangerous and in the brainstorm that follows a voice from the crowd suggests spin the bottle.

“What?” Alex snorts. “That’s weird.” There’s a wave of murmurs from the crowd.

“I don’t know.” Becca chimes. “It could be kind of fun. Silly.”

And once Becca is in, Alex is in, and everybody else follows suit. The power of drunken herd mentality means nothing seems like half as bad of an idea a few drinks into it and once more than 5 people have agreed. It doesn’t seem all that strange to Kara, just as long as the kissing stays polite, and it’s actually a little exciting once everybody arranges themselves on the floor with the Yuengling bottle in the middle. Like middle school, almost.

“I can’t believe this.” Alex groans and she leans forward on her knees to take her turn. “We’re all adults with 401ks.” After the group shouts her down and one chucks a napkin at her head, she relents and gives the bottle a quick twist.

Alex gives Winn a chaste peck on the lips, Vasquez and Becca giggle before they smooch, James and Winn engage in a rather theatrical liplock. Kara sits on her hands while she waits for it to be her turn—everybody just looks to be having so much fun—and when the circle finally comes to her she practically launches herself at the bottle. “Slow down, bucko.” Winn laughs. “Is there a frog in the circle you’re trying to kiss?”

Kara flips him off and spins the bottle. A little too hard judging by the blur it becomes, whizzing around with a hum. It gives Kara time to ponder the potential outcomes. Maybe it’ll be Winn’s third of the night and they’ll share a goofy kiss, or maybe a painfully awkward one with James. Or maybe—her eyes lock with Lena’s. She finds the other woman already studying her with a softhearted expression and gets stuck there, tires in the mud. Lena is so pretty it’s almost devastating, and no wonder Kara is so affixed to her. A hushed ooooh ripples around the circle, but Kara hardly notices, busy as she is looking at the soft curve of Lena’s mouth.

“Kara.” Vasquez nudges her with an elbow and Kara almost swats her off before her eyes fall on the bottle. It’s pointing due north, straight at Lena as if pulled along the magnetic field of her gaze. When she looks up, Lena is smiling.

“I guess it’s you and me.” She says. Kara’s jaw unhinges and she touches the corner of her glasses, resists the urge to sit on her hands again. Of all possible scenarios, this is the diciest. But Lena looks unperturbed. Smug, even. And when in doubt Kara looks to other people to take her emotional cues, so she tries to discipline herself into that shape.

“I guess so.” Since most of Kara’s wishes tonight have come true, she wishes then that everybody else in the circle would find something better to do then watch them. Kara tries to concentrate on Lena leaning toward her, the act of it, not the specific stuff like the way her sweater gapes at the neck or how she tosses her hair over a shoulder.

Kara’s wish has come true or the group is watching them with intense interest. Either way, it’s quiet. Lena is coming in across the circle and Kara shuffles over on her hands and knees to meet her. Polite, just like she’d hoped. Her friend’s eyes are already closed by the time she gets close enough. Kara feels a phantom tickle on her cheek looking at her eyelashes.

She tilts her head and presses her lips to Lena’s receptive mouth. About a second passes where it’s appropriate. A second in which Kara sighs and Lena’s breath comes out hot on her upper lip. The kiss isn’t sisterly, or stilted, or hammy. It’s achingly genuine and it sends real shivers down to nest at the base of Kara’s spine. But even with all of that, it still has the potential to end. For that second, as it drifts into and out of their grasp, they could pull away, laugh awkwardly, return to their spots in the circle. Kara would spend the rest of the night wondering if there was some connection between the strangeness of the kiss and Lena’s hand on her bicep by the bathroom.

But the second comes and the second goes, and instead of pulling away Lena reaches her hand to tangle in Kara’s hair and presses their faces closer. And then Kara moans because Lena’s lips are moving against hers and that tingle at the base of her spine is exploding into something that covers her whole body. Something that hasn’t been present in her encounters previous, like her usually dulled senses are being dragged into glorious high definition. Every ridge of Lena’s mouth, the taste of her breath, the way she presses in eager and hard. It’s her first three dimensional kiss.

Kara recognizes in the back of her head that there are people in the room with them and that they should stop. But somebody’s tongue licks against somebody’s lips and Lena’s other hand pulls Kara by the bicep to move toward her lap, where she follows willingly.

The hand that’s still in Kara’s hair scratches at her scalp and the hand on her bicep squeezes, confirming at least one suspicion from earlier. Kara is sure that the kiss has made drunker than before. She can smell the perfume that she’d only gotten a whiff of earlier and it makes her needier, more frenzied. She lets herself crawl fully into Lena’s lap and be held there.

There’s a far-off grumbling noise—somebody is clearing their throat. It’s hard to focus on because Lena is doing this thing with her tongue in Kara’s mouth that makes her hips grind into her lap thoughtlessly. But then it happens again, louder, and Kara has to tear her mouth away to tell that person to shut up and stop interrupting what is amounting to the most electric kiss of her life.

There are 13 faces staring back at them, most looking like a paint sample card for the color red. Kara’s sense returns to her in increments as she takes stock of where she is. In Alex’s apartment. On Lena’s lap. Recently detached from Lena’s mouth. Previously considering taking Lena’s hand and dragging it under her shirt.

“Uh, Kara?” With great hesitation, Kara turns her head to look at Alex. “Do you maybe want to...dismount Lena so we can keep playing the game?”

She is kind of mounted on Lena, isn’t she? Lena, for her part, doesn’t look perturbed. She seems tickled actually, like she’s just gotten something she really wanted. One hand remains on Kara’s hip, burning hot.

“Pfft, yeah, of course.” Kara clambers off of Lena’s lap as if that was her plan all along and not hurtling toward second base like a meteor without a care in the world for a single other person in the room. Once she’s a safe distance away, Kara realizes that she needs to do something to make this situation seem normal. Like she hadn’t just been folded into her best friend’s lap ready to risk it all.

The only answer is to make a joke out of it. So Kara turns on her knees and extends her hand for a shake. “Good game partner.” She says, and stirs a few tension breaking laughs from the group. Lena takes her hand and shakes it like a good sport, but she’s looking at Kara in away that Kara isn’t sure she likes, one eyebrow lifted and the corner of her mouth piqued. Then she starts caressing her thumb over one of Kara’s knuckles and a game over sign starts flashing in front her eyes.

—-  
“What the fuck was that last night?” Alex’s voice is so shrill that Kara has to pull the phone away from her ear. She rolls over on her side and grabs her watch from the nightstand. 10 on a Saturday morning is way too early for this conversation.

“What do you mean?” She grumbles, flopping on her back and passing a hand over her face. There’s so many things she should be doing, mostly thinking-related and some laundry. Lena’s look after they’d broken the kiss keeps flashing across her mind.

“What do I mean? How about—how about you fully making out with Lena?”

“I didn’t—we didn’t fully make out.” But they had, and Kara knew they had. It’s line item #3 in her list of things to agonize over after breakfast. She’d seen Lena’s name come up in her notifications before she picked up Alex’s call and knew that she was trying to reach out. “It was a kiss.”

“I saw tongue.” Kara can hear Alex taking a long sip of something, probably coffee. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

“No.” Kara says petulantly. “I mean yes, I was drunk and things got out of hand. But there’s nothing else really to talk about.”

“If you say so.” Alex sing-songs. “She probably texted you a million times last night. Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

Kara holds her phone directly to her mouth. “Goodbye Alex.” And she hangs up, tossing it to her left with a bounce. Then she remembers Lena’s name on her screen and gathers it again, holding it above her face and squinting.

_hey! Let me know when ur home safe_

_I’m assuming you’re home and you just passed out. But text me in the morning_

_I had a lot of fun tonight. that kiss was something else_

Kara drops her phone on her face and groans at the impact. Her heart is thundering at probably 150 beats per minute. She hopes that something else means something good. Because it was good for Kara, like I wanna take my clothes off right now good. And she hasn’t felt that way in a while.

Or at all, really.

_Ok now I think I’m drunk and making a fool of myself. just text me later, ok?_

Later, after she’s crammed half a stack of pancakes into her maw and scrolled through her news apps, not exactly thinking about her response but soaking in the feelings those messages evoked in her, she drafts a text. Kara types with one thumb while her other hand drums on her thigh, trying to think of what Alex would do or say in this situation.

_hi! home safe not dead :)_

_agreed about last night. and everything else._

There. Conveying a sense of vague interest instead of the real, actual, stabbing anxiety she feels. It’s not that Kara is opposed to kissing women. She’s thought about it before, but never thought it would happen like that and with Lena. And that she would find herself so invested, biting her nails and watching the three dots on her screen with a trembling thigh.

_sorry about those texts last night  
I was pretty drunk. My uber driver practically had to carry me into my apt lmao_

Kara blinks down at her phone.

_After Kings Cup everybody was pretty gone tbh  
And don’t be sorry. I’m still thinking about it to be honest._

After hitting send, she has to stand up and walk away. Lena starts typing back immediately and the phone vibrates against her granite counter. All she can do is stare it down, worrying at her thumbnail with her teeth, wondering if any of this is really worth it. In the end Kara launches back and grabs the device, reading the message in front of her.

 _God, me too._  
Do you want to meet up and talk abt it after I get off work?  
I can swing by and pick you up

The acknowledgement that they have something to talk about and that the kiss hadn’t just been casual, like Winn and Alex or Vasquez and Becca, is jarring. There she was yesterday morning, peering into Lena’s office, not knowing what it’s like to kiss her, and here she is 24 hours later spiraling out in her kitchen because she does know what it’s like to kiss her. She knows that kissing her best friend is good, that it’s something that draws a response out of her body.

_Talking sounds good. See you tonight_

Kara tries to go back through significant moments in their relationship while she crams her laundry into the machine. True that there’d been lingering hugs and charged looks and Lena did sometimes make her feel like she was floating just at the surface of a cold lake, weightless and alive. She’d just never considered that those might be all the trappings of a romantic relationship. But there’s no denying the butterflies in her stomach or the near obsessive way she checks her phone, just in case maybe Lena texted her.

By the time the black Mercedes arrives outside of her apartment, Kara has finished her laundry, dodged Alex’s texts, worn a hole in the floor and watched two movies. She unfolds herself from the couch and shuffles over to her living room window, peeking out to see Lena’s car parked against the curb of her building.

Even after she’d found out about Supergirl she insisted on doing things like picking her up. Part of Kara is tempted to equate it to preening, like maybe Lena wants her to know that she can take her somewhere in a Mercedes Benz with a tinted partition. She doesn’t dwell on her wealth unless it’s to escort Kara to upscale restaurants, or buy her a pair of brogues she’s admiring, or show up for her in expensive automobiles. All things she’d shoved into the ‘miscellaneous’ box in her brain until now, when they were feeling a whole lot less miscellaneous.

Pauly opens the passenger door while Kara is still coming down the block. When she arrives, she bends her neck to see Lena inside, surrounded on every front by paperwork. Her profile opened up by the low cut of her dress is enough to send Kara’s body into overdrive. She begs herself to relax but when Lena glances up, smile already hanging on her face, all hope flies out the window.

“Are you going to come in?” Lena prompts, setting the papers on her lap to the side. Kara realizes that Pauly is still behind her, waiting for her to slide in so he can close the door. She clears her throat and pleats herself to into the spacious back seat.

It smells like Lena. Her perfume, and something under it that might be her natural scent. Kara only vaguely hears Pauly shut the diver’s door behind himself so focused is her attention on Lena’s hands as she shuffles the pile next to her. “I’m glad you texted.” She says, at a loss for anything else. “I was thinking we should talk, this morning.”

“Me too.” Lena hums. “Obviously, because I texted you.”

“Where to, Ms. Luthor?”

“Kara?” Lena looks at her warmly. “I was thinking we could grab take out to bring back to mine. Any ideas?”

On cue, Kara’s stomach growls. “Yeah, I have a couple.”

The drive to McDonalds is hindered by an accident and a spate of standstill rush hour traffic as well as the 20 minutes it took to convince Lena that people did still eat there and they did have salads. As soon as Pauly pulls off the curb Lena’s attention is fixed on her, studious enough that it makes the back of Kara’s neck burn. “How was your day?”

“Oh.” That’s not what Kara thought she would say. “It was fine. I did some laundry. Watched a couple movies.”

“Anything good?”

“I liked the new Star Wars.”

“Let’s cut to the chase.” Kara feels like a pendulum being swung wildly from side to side. They haven’t even made it off her block yet. She nods repetitively despite not being sure what she’s agreeing to. “I’d like to take you out.”

“Take me...out?”

“Yes. Like on a date.” As if just remembering, Lena reaches out and shifts the partition window closed, then slides over closer to Kara. “You, me. Some stuffy restaurant. I’ll wear that green dress you like.”

“It makes your eyes pop.” Kara interjects absently. Lena smiles wider, almost wolffish, and uses her words as an opening to move closer.

“We’ll play footsie under the table. The I’ll take you home and we can…” The sentence trails off, a thousand scenarios blasting through Kara’s mind at breakneck speed. Then Lena’s gaze flicks to the front of Kara’s shirt, and she licks her lips, leaving them wet. Kara only sees one scenario then.

“Oh.” Her hands smooth down her thighs and she nods again. “No. No thank you.”

Lena’s eyebrows knit, forming a notch above the slope of her nose. Her posture sags, as if it had taken a great deal of momentum to ask and she’d spent the energy she needed to support herself. “I’m sorry, I must have misread—“

“You didn’t misread anything.” Kara interjects, leaning forward and clasping Lena’s hand in her own. Her earnestness betrays her. Lena’s proximity is making it difficult for her to conjure up reasons to say no. “I mean, I’d like to. Gosh. But, I’ve never. And you’re…”

“A woman? A Luthor?” Lena rattles off, looking more insecure my the moment. The car lurches forward and stops again.

“My best friend. We only just kissed last night, and…” Kara squeezes a firm pressure onto Lena’s hands. “I’ve dated friends before. It didn’t go off well. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” Or worse, if they slowly just drifted from intimacy to a more foreign locale. In the background a car honks, incensed at the stand-still traffic.

“Do you want to pretend it didn’t happen?”

“No. Definitely not. No.” Some things you could forget, or pretend to. Seeing somebody fall on the street. An embarrassing comment made in the midst of a group conversation. But not that. It existed so tangibly that it was like a memory Kara could hold in her hands. Or replay back and forth like a VHS tape.

“Neither do I.” Lena admits quietly. “It was a good kiss.” It was, too, thrilling and passionate. Kara hadn’t expected it like she hadn’t expected to be sitting in Lena’s car, hands around her hands, thinking about doing it again. What she’d said before was pretty much the truth. She was burned by what happened before and wasn’t ready for it to happen like that again.

“Maybe we could, um.” Kara’s eyes glance to the closed partition, then to Lena’s knees, exposed by her hemline. She hears her voice and it’s incredible softness, sees Lena’s face blinking back at her dreamily. Lena slides up until she’s pressed to Kara’s side, maybe to hear better. “Talk? About it?”

“Talk about it.” Lena repeats. She’s close enough now that her breath tickles along Kara’s jaw, raising the hairs there. Kara looks at the jagged topography of her knees and her palms burn. “Okay.”

“Yeah. Uh,” They’re on a collision course like the one the night before but twice as inevitable. Lena must sense it too because she’s angling her body in, toward Kara’s heat, following her words. “About feelings. And stuff.”

“And stuff.” Lena’s mouth opens, flashing her white teeth, and she bites at her bottom lip. This is a habit that Kara has noticed before and is now fixated on, so much so that she doesn’t realize that she’s tilting in. “What kind of stuff.” Her lips are barely moving. Strangely, it’s not a question.

“Yeah, I mean—“ The kiss intercepts her in the middle of a sentence, mouth open, and Lena slips her tongue in in tandem with the press of her lips. Kara’s hands are ready and tangling in dark hair. She moans as she feels her back hitting the door, her head against the tinted window, and Lena’s body insistent and molded against hers.

This isn’t exactly according to plan. She’d hoped to approach this like rational adults trying to downshift a friendship into a potential romantic coupling, not horny teenagers humping in the backseat of their parents car. But Lena’s hips are moving and doesn’t it feel like magic, especially when she shifts them in between Kara’s thighs and braces herself with a hand against the window.

“Is that partition soundproof?” Kara gasps when Lena tears her mouth away to focus on her jaw, then her neck. There are teeth pulling gently at her earlobe and soft hands pushing up her shirt to find purchase on her stomach. A low noise erupts against her ear when Lena’s palms press against her abs. There’s a thought trying to break through Kara’s haze, through the damp of Lena’s mouth working it’s way to her collarbone. It’s not until the car jerks again, a reminder that they’re still in traffic, that Kara lets it through. “Lena, hold on.”

Lena’s head pops up immediately and her hands still against Kara’s skin. Kara has to fight past the raw disappointment and desire that kindles when she sees how swollen her lips are. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, I—“ Her eyelashes are fluttering again, and hands are stirring back alive just to the side of Kara’s navel. “You’re making it hard to concentrate.”

“Sorry.” Lena murmurs. “But you’re making it hard to be good.”

“Gosh.” Kara says. She has an impulse to grasp Lena back to her body, to have her so close that there’s no negative space between their skin and clothes. It’s circumvented by Pauly’s knuckles against the partition. Lena’s head snaps toward the sound.

“We’re here, ma’am’s.” So, not soundproof. Kara figures that Pauly must be discreet or Lena would never have hired him.

“I’d totally forgotten.” Like a dream Lena fades from Kara’s space, leaving her bereft. “Are you still hungry?”

Kara stares at Lena. “Are you kidding?”

They sort out their order, Kara dictating and Lena scribbling on a legal pad to give to Pauly.

“How many chicken nuggets?” Lena balks. “Honestly.”

“When I was in undergrad my friends used to get high and see if they could beat me in a nugget eating contest.” Kara snatches the pad away and scans it, making sure it’s correct. “Nobody won. Obviously.”

In the end, Kara convinces Lena to get a burger with fries under the pretense that she’ll eat a few. The tension transforms into arguing over the validity of Pepsi vs. Coke quicker than Pauly can snap the partition open and closed to take their order. It’s an armistice of sorts. Kara knows they’ll have to return to the conversation later, but for now she’s content to watch Lena Luthor, billionaire CEO, peel the monopoly piece off of her Diet Coke.

“I didn’t do much of that stuff.” She admits later, when they’re almost to her apartment and circled around back to the conversation of Kara’s college adventures. She’s looking out the window. Not sad, contemplative. “Lex was on his way to a PhD when he was 25. I wanted to beat him. And then…” She trails off, tapping the straw against her mouth. “...well, everything happened I suppose. Someday, maybe.”

They leave the ceasefire on Lena’s welcome mat and are kissing again before they’re through the door. A number of different, dizzying things fly through Kara’s mind. She wants to sit Lena down on the couch and have her continue to speak in obscured language about her life. She wants Lena to keep pressing her against the island of her kitchen like she’s the strong one, running her hands up her sides like they’re a territory she knows well.

There are so many idiosyncrasies to kissing Lena—the first time ones, the way their noses bump when they switch angles, the slight of their teeth together. And the Lena ones, like that she kisses the opposite of how she talks. Her diction is pure New England and coached within an inch of its life. Her kissing is private school, sometimes losing its train of thought to Kara’s jaw or her chin, hurried and a little wet.

Swept up, Kara lets herself be taken on an impromptu tour of the apartment. They stumble together through the kitchen, land briefly on the couch in the living room where Lena leaves her blouse and a few buttons from Kara’s shirt, divert into the guest bathroom on accident, and finally make it to the bedroom.

This is about as good as it gets, in terms of the surreal. Lena weighting her body into her mattress, tugging her button down somehow up over her head and laughing at the muss of Kara’s hair. Kara would let her do anything at that point, wants for Lena to be submerged in her like a hand dipping full into soil.

When Lena removes her bra and laps at a nipple with her tongue, Kara thinks that she probably has about 40 texts from Alex asking her how their talk is going. There’s still a grocery store pizza in her fridge that she’d planned to have tonight, when she got home, and Lena’s busy hands are popping open her pants and tugging them down her thighs.

“Hey.” Kara says, sitting up on her elbows. Lena is working on her own skirt, trying to yank down what might be the world's smallest zipper. It keeps getting stuck in the second layer of fabric. “What’s up?”

“I’m trying to get this stupid zipper. Then—aha!” It comes down with a metallic buzz, leaving the skirt gaping open around Lena’s waist. “What’s up with you?”

“Oh, you know.” Kara shrugs. Lena seems to have paused her mission so Kara finishes the job for her, pulling it down and exposing a matching set of panties to Lena’s beige bra. “Not complaining, but for some reason I thought you’d wear—I don’t know, a $20,000 gold leaf thong, or something.”

Lena huffs out a laugh and rolls to the side, falling off Kara and onto the space next to her. “Have you ever tried working a 16 hour day in lingerie? I need support. Especially for these.” She grabs at her own boobs and Kara laughs in delight, shimmying her body closer until they’re side by side facing each other. Outside the apartment, cars honk and a siren goes wailing by. Kara keeps an ear out, but it’s nothing that needs her attention.

“I’m so fond of you.” Lena says in a small voice, reaching a hand out to brush against Kara’s face. “Even before last night.”

“Me too.” Kara closes the space between them, leaving them forehead to forehead, thigh to thigh, breasts pressed together. Her hand comes over Lena’s and holds it in place. “That’s why I’m kind of worried.”

“Will you spend the night tonight?” Lena asks. “It doesn’t have to be—romantic. We can put our clothes back on and watch a movie. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll stay.” Kara rubs her thighs together and winces. “My panties are ruined.”

“Just take a pair of mine. You can have pajamas, too.”

Kara’s hand passes over the neatly folded rows of underwear in Lena’s top drawer, the sound of a running shower buzzing in her ear. True to what she’d said earlier, it’s mostly practical pieces, things that wouldn’t show through cream pants or a sheer blouse. How often had Kara considered what Lena might look like under everything only to come up wrong every time. She lifts a pair of spanx and her lips twitch at what she sees underneath.

Kara holds the black lace in the palm of her hands. It sits like a doily ready to be torn apart at any moment, and she supposes that’s how you can tell it’s expensive. With on thumb, she traces the piece of cotton sewn into the crotch, then startles when the water cuts off abruptly.

By the time Lena shuffles back into the bedroom, wearing a towel about her body and rubbing the wet ends of her hair with another, Kara is dressed in a pair of her joggers with an oversized T-Shirt. She also has on the black panties which are a little large on her, but Lena doesn’t know. Kara wonders if she wants to.

The truth under years of varnish becomes apparent the more they chip away at it together. And maybe the key to this feeling all along was seeing Lena reading an engineering journal in late afternoon sunlight, her toes flexing absently in her socks. Maybe it’s knowing that she has birthmarks and scars and dimples on her back. Kara can’t bear to be hewn from her. She’s sixteen and they’re together in her bedroom, a secret desire passing between them. She borrows toothbrushes and underwear and a comb. They eat nearly every meal together, from breakfast to late night snacks, and spend nearly every night whispering. The kiss they’d shared on game night fades further and further into the rear view mirror in light of the others that come to bury it.

Kara does agree to go out together, weeks later, softened by Lena’s hesitant second request. She’s reticent to to admit it but she’d been going to new places and thinking to herself that they’d be a good place to come for a date. Coffee shops and green spaces and everything else, she scans them and pictures Lena there amongst the minutiae, wearing a green dress, or the jeans that look good on her ass.

But there’s only one place in her mind when Lena asks. She’s thinking of her with her head leaned on the car window, tapping her lips against the straw of a McDonalds cup, when she buys the 40 and grabs the blanket off of her couch. The sky is bright and clear when she alights on Lena’s balcony to find her ready, wearing a dress and deceptively nice shoes, biting one of her fingernails. The sweetness of it sticks on Kara like honey. What a human thing, to be standing nervous for your date, what a strange way to see Lena. She almost flies into her glass balcony door.

It only takes 5 minutes cruising slow to get to the nearest secluded beach. Lena gives her a sidelong glance when they step onto the sand but Kara just shrugs back at her, supplies tucked in a backpack on her shoulders. “Did you take me here to kill me?” Lena asks wryly, wiggling her toes in the sand. The dark makes the ocean an ominous specter in front of them, crashing and sighing with the movement of the tide.

“Har har. Come with me.”

“I’m just saying, we could be at Matazzio’s right now. You could be winning a steak eating contest.”

Undeterred, Kara folds Lena’s hand into her own and leads her down the shoreline. She’s memorized her path to the spot they want, trekked it a few times to make sure they wouldn’t get lost. In her free hand she holds a flashlight and illuminates their path sparingly.

“Close your eyes.”

“It’s dark out here already. Kara, you didn’t need to pull tricks to get laid tonight.” But Lena’s hand is already over her eyes, anyway. Kara sets up their spot hastily, just refraining from using accelerated speed, and when the final touches are done she sits back on her heels, observing.

“You can open your eyes now.”

For a simple event, she’d spent a lot of time planning it. The right throw blanket, the 40 oz bottle of malt liquor, the electric candles scattered around. The placement under a makeshift cove of sand and driftwood. Lena is looking at it like she’s pulled the whole moon down on a string for her. Her eyes are wet and her hand is clenching and unclenching around the clutch purse in her hands.

“You really expect me to drink malt liquor?”

“You said earlier that you’d never gotten to do this stuff in college. Drink a 40 by the ocean. That felt like such a shame.”

On the blanket, aglow with cheap candlelight, Lena kicks off her shoes and takes a game swig from the 40. Kara has to laugh; there’s nowhere else for that energy to go. All at once she knows that someday she and Lena will really come to see each other face to face, that maybe they already are. Uncertainty sheds from her body like a useless second skin and leaves her new-feeling. She’s glowing under the light of Lena’s laugh, the way she catches a dribble of malt with the back of her hand.

Kara wants to keep giving Lena the things that’d been taken from her. She thinks that Lena might have things to give her, too, if she lets herself listen for them. To keep her ear to the floor, Kara kisses her on that blanket on the beach, an act that she’d seen people do in romantic comedies but never had the pleasure of herself. Lena tastes like cheap liquor.

“I’m happy you’re taking a chance on me.”

“It doesn’t feel very chancy.” Kara admits.

She kisses her again and again, half-wondering how this keeps happening, half-realizing that the bottle has fallen and spilled and darkened the sand. Lena is clutching her like a lifeline, then she’s separating them to whisper a fever into Kara’s ear. “I want you right now. I’m tired of waiting.”

Kara is tired, too. Journalism degree notwithstanding she’s not much good with words but she can maybe show Lena how she feels for her, the dimension that her devotion has taken on. Lena is on her back, then her dress is pressed up around her stomach, and Kara is overheating like a shotty radiator but her hands are steady.

“Woah.” They both turn their heads in the direction of the sudden noise. Two boys, neither of whom look a day over 18, stand with a flashlight pointed in their direction. They’re holding hands, and the taller one is gripping a bottle of wine.

“Uh.” Kara can’t find it in herself to roll off of Lena quite yet. “Hi.”

“Hi.” The boys say in unison. The taller one seems to snap out of it first, shaking his head. “God, sorry, we were just—we can go.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Kara starts to gather herself, giving Lena time to push down her skirt before she tumbles to her other side. “We were just finishing up.” She tries to ignore the look that the other woman is giving her.

The boys are young enough that Kara isn’t sure they would have another place to go, and she and Lena have an entire apartment waiting for them. A spacious, expensive one. They end up leaving the blanket, the candles, one of Lena’s shoes, the spilled drink, everything. She thinks she hears one of them say “Man, those lesbians were hella nice” as they heft up a sand dune to the promenade, hand in hand and giggling, but can’t be sure.

—

Technically speaking, they’ve been kissing for hours. It’s been broken up at various places to eat or drink, to watch an episode of Forensic Files. Their time on the beach already had Kara worked into a lather and she has to tell herself, again and again, that just because she feels ready doesn’t mean that Lena is ready. Although she has taken off all of her clothes, and she was wearing something underneath that made Kara feel like she was 16 and seeing boobs for the first time in a nudie mag stashed under Alex’s mattress. There was lace, and a color that looked good against Lena’s skin, and altogether a picture that made Kara think that Lena was hoping she’d see them. What level of her underwear drawer had that been buried in that Kara hadn’t found it? Was there a trapdoor in there somewhere?

Not that it matters now, because the underwear is gone, as is the bra. The lights are turned down so low that Kara can scarcely see Lena’s face. She reaches for it with her hand, feeling the lines and damp spots and coarse hairs with the pads of her fingers, finding her mouth agape and puffing out little gasps. Kara has never been one to make out the shape of the erotic or to define it in concrete terms. But like this, Lena on top of Kara, Kara’s hand cupping Lena’s inner thigh with fingers trembling less than an inch from where they’ll be buried and searching, Kara thinks that she can see the likeness now.

There will be nothing to break this tension. Not a hastily mumbled joke, a shy hey, a request to watch a movie. The hairs on Lena’s inner thighs and labia tickle Kara’s knuckles and her thumb strokes over the skin of her ass. It’s intoxicating to be this close to the object of her fixation. One slip over with her fingers and she would be sliding through Lena’s warmth, which Lena seems to know as well as she does based on the way she bucks back into the touch.

Their kisses are comparatively chaste, as if there’s a broken connection between their lower bodies and what’s happening above. Every press is close-mouthed, and Kara isn’t sure if she can take much more. She reminds herself that she wants to go at Lena’s pace. Even if that means ignoring that she can feel Lena getting wet, bearing her hips down in search of something as she places a tender kiss to the underside of Kara’s jaw. Kara’s hand is trapped between their chests playing with one of her nipples. She’s about to spontaneously combust, to soak a stain into Lena’s expensive mattress, and the way Lena’s hips undulate and bring their centers closer together isn’t helping things.

When the slip happens, it’s an accident. Lena’s mouth is sucking at Kara’s earlobe, and it tickled a little at first but now it just feels good, and her hips are still shifting and making these little feminine noises and Kara’s finger just—moves. From the rapidly dampening skin of her inner thigh to the soaked heat of her cunt, crossing that charged half-inch of space.

Lena chokes a little and her head falls from Kara’s face to her shoulder. Immediately, Kara makes to pull back only to be stopped by Lena’s hand on her wrist. “It’s okay.” She wasn’t prepared for her voice to sound that breathy, or for Lena to punctuate it with an open mouthed kiss to the curve of Kara’s skin. She chases it with her teeth, biting down just enough to be present, to muffle the groan when Kara’s single digit starts running through the length of her. “Just don’t go inside yet. I want this to last.”

A lot of shocking things have fallen out of Lena’s mouth since this arrangement began, but none have elicited such a visceral response. They land everywhere, in Kara’s gut, in the space between her eyes. The suddenness of her want shakes her. As soon as Lena says it, it’s as if she never needed anything in a worse way than to bury herself up to her wrist inside of her. Kara wishes it would last, too, but she wishes that it could be happening right then.

The first few minutes are purely exploratory. Lena is sometimes quiet against her, sometimes heavy-breathing, sometimes whining her pleasure into the side of Kara’s face. The angle is a little awkward but there’s something about the slackened weight of Lena’s body against hers, the way her hand slips around from behind to find her, that makes up for it. Her movements don’t need to be exact. They’re acutely felt all the same, maybe deeper because of the sloppiness of them.

Lena braces herself up on her elbows so she’s hovering just an inch more over Kara’s face. “God, that feels good.”

“Do you want me to keep going like this?”

“Yeah.” She sighs, and kisses her again. Not chaste this time, but searching and slow, almost in time with the movement of Kara’s fingers against her. Unable to keep her wrist bent, Kara moves until her hand is between their hips and resumes her ministrations. She glances around Lena’s entrance, runs four digits up and splays them apart as she gets higher before moving back down, pressing over her clit as she passes. Lena’s ensuing jerk and the breathy moan that follows emboldens her. She does it again, rougher this time and quicker, focusing her attentions higher, and Lena nearly throws herself off her body.

“I might come if you keep going like that.” Her voice is cracked and there’s a laugh behind it, like she can’t believe it’s the truth. Kara can’t believe it either, really.

“Do you want—“

“Yeah. Keep going.”

Kara does, urgently. To her delight, she can feel Lena start to twitch against her fingers and then her moans start to take on a shaky quality. Her biceps tremble next to Kara’s face and she has to resist the urge to lean in, to kiss and bite. The task at hand requires too much focus to get sidetracked.

“Oh my God.” Every word has a different pitch, all warbling. Lena’s head falls against the pillow and her arms start to shake in earnest. “I’m gonna come.” Kara moans. “What the fuck, oh my God.”

She hadn’t really pegged Lena as a talker. Hearing how her voice changes because of what Kara is doing to her drives her up a wall. Kara is burning between her legs, has to press her thighs together to release some of the heat. They come apart sticky. “You’re so pretty.” She says, only thinking about how much she’d like to be inside Lena when she comes. “You’re so pretty like this, Lena.”

Lena bites out one last tortured sounding oh my God and chases it with a wail. Her body tenses, locks up above Kara who just keeps working her through it. Kara has never felt so inexplicably powerful than when Lena sags on top of her, satiated.

“You really pulled that together, huh?” Lena grumbles into the pillow. “So much for making it last.”

Kara has to laugh at that, somewhere past her haze of arousal. Her arms embrace Lena, every soft curve of her, trying desperately to get her as close as possible to her own body. Kara discovers that there’s no such thing as close enough even when Lena takes the hint and wriggles her body around to tuck in.

Starting, Kara realizes that one of Lena’s hands has come to rest on the north of her thigh. Still laying across her, breast to breast and hip to hip, face still tucked into Kara’s neck. She feels what might be a smile form against her skin.

“How are you, darling?” She nips at Kara’s neck, hand moving up to cup Kara between her legs. Kara shudders with the relief of it. “Have I told you yet how much I liked our date?”

“N-uh-No.” Kara stutters, bearing down into Lena’s palm. Her whole body is on autopilot and single minded in its pursuit of release. Pursuit of what Lena can give her, really. Arms move up, running through and then fisting in her own hair.

“Oh, you’re wet.” Lena sounds awed. “When did that happen?”

“When I was touching you.” Kara answers, although it may have been a rhetorical question. Her whole body experiences a tremor when a lone finger starts to trace the contour of her swollen outer lips. In any other scenario the vision of Lena perched above her, comforter gathered around her shoulders and face crumpled in concentration might be cute. Now Kara can only focus on that finger and how it feels when it starts to stroke confidently up from her entrance to her clit, followed by another, then another.

Lena is whispering something in her ear when she presses inside of her for the first time, rocking her whole body forward with the motion. Kara doesn’t know what it is, nor does the know the litany of things that follow as Lena ads a second finger and begins to move them. The in-and-out motion is at first almost comforting and a little aimless but Kara doesn’t track it. Her body is weightless and her feelings are reduced to the things that Lena can do to her.

At first it’s her fingers. Lena crawls down her body and chases them with her mouth, licking practiced and cool and holding Kara’s thighs apart like she has a say in it. Kara is so messy-wet that when she comes up it’s on her mouth, her cheeks, the ends of her hair, even though she hasn’t come yet, even though her legs are quaking with the potential energy of her orgasm. If she’d known it would be like this when she asked Lena on a date, she would have packed an energy bar. Or asked for a glass of water before they moved to the bedroom.

The second time around, Lena’s hands are confident. They’re searching for something. Two slide in easily and Kara moans, reaching above her head to find purchase on the headboard. Lena teases a third against her for a moment, as if she’s deciding herself, and then works it in with the others. She strokes, twists, curls her fingers, not keeping up any particular pattern or rhythm. Kara is half-feral trying to chase the feeling.

She’s soaked with the evidence of her own pleasure as well as whatever Lena’s left behind when she went down on her. When the fourth finger comes to tease where the others are Kara doesn’t think twice about clawing at Lena’s back and nodding frantically into her shoulder. She’s craving more, needs Lena closer. The whine that escapes her when Lena gathers her fingers together and eases her pinky in with the rest is a sound she’s sure she’s never made before.

It’s rare, if not impossible, for a human to evoke a response in Kara that’s anything akin to pain. A person could punch, slap, pinch, kick until the day was done and she’d only feel pressure. But there’s an undeniable, delicious stretch when Lena has four fingers inside of her. And a flicker of soreness when she moves them that has Kara bucking her hips off the bed, mouth open and eyes screwed shut.

“Good?”

Kara can’t respond. She tries and it comes out as a strangled grunt. What she wants is something she can’t communicate out loud, afraid that it might sound more vulgar coming out of her mouth than it does in her head. She’s never been a hundred percent sure what is and isn’t appropriate during sex where humans are concerned. What if this is one of those things like butt stuff that isn’t okay to bring up the first go around?

Physical sensation is so often strained through a hundred filters before it hits Kara’s body, muted and docile. Here Lena’s hand has the volume turned up halfway. She’s harnessed something savage that Kara craves a larger piece of.

“What’s the matter?” Lena pants. When Kara’s eyes refocus, she’s staring down at her pink-faced with exertion. “What do you need?”

Still waffling between two planes of existence, Kara reaches and holds Lena’s wrist in her hand. It pauses in its ministrations. Kara keeps fast to prevent her from pulling all the way out. “I want more of this. Your hand.”

Realization dawns on Lena’s face. She glances down to where they’re connected and back up to Kara’s face, then smiles. Everything shifts in tandem but without Lena severing their link. Blankets fall from her shoulders to the floor, Kara’s body is dragged willingly down the bed and her hips propped up onto Lena’s lap. Lena is sitting gloriously naked and with her legs crossed, a halo framing Kara’s lower body. Gently, she urges her legs apart and up toward Kara’s body until they’re tucked to the sides of her chest.

Her eyes are riveted to where her knuckles sever at the apex of Kara’s thighs. Kara sees it too, and she sees Lena with her face in a haze, hair a mess. The meandering lines of her body and the meat of her thighs. An emotion she identifies as love without needing to linger on it ricochets through her ribcage. Waves of calm pass over Kara when she realizes that the worry of the last few weeks has been unfounded. Lena is going to take care of her.

“Can you get into that drawer?” Lena gestures with her head to the nightstand next to Kara’s head. “There’s lube in there.”

She doesn’t use it right away after Kara hands it down to her. Lena starts with her free hand stroking along Kara’s clit, just heavy enough to work her up, and continuing to twist and work the fingers already inside of her. Kara lets herself be dragged further and further under the surface. She’s compliant and trusting.

Flopped down on the bed, unable to keep watching, she feels the beginning of Lena’s lube slicked thumb joining the pile of her other fingers, the hand on her clit keeps rubbing with increasing intent. As if listening to herself outside of her body, Kara can hear the base sounds she’s making, can see her body’s twisting on the bed. There’s a star ready to die inside of her stomach, accelerating in response to the stretch of Lena’s hand. Her body throbs and her physical existence is thrust from obscurity to aching surround-sound. The pain and the pleasure are there and tangible enough that she could cry under the weight of them.

Kara feels every single inch of Lena’s hand when it slides past the last knuckle. She feels it and she explodes around it, becoming the sound of her raw yell. She wants to reach down and grab Lena’s wrist, keep it lodged while she comes but the only spot for her hands is braced on the replaceable headboard.

Lena seems to understand. She keeps her hand inside, keeps rubbing, hunched over and whispering and placing kisses at the tight skin of Kara’s sternum. “Sweetheart.” Kara hears beyond the rushing of her own blood in her ears. Her heart is the tattoo of a trash can being slammed by a baseball bat. She registers that Lena’s hand is still inside her, twitching. “Are you okay?”

In the back of her mind Kara knows that once Lena leaves her, her cells will grow and reconnect and erase this feeling. She draws Lena close to her, cages her in with her thighs and embrace. Her hands run over a wonderful, delicate back. “I didn’t hurt your hand, did I?”

From above her, a shaky laugh. “I can’t believe you’re asking me if I’m hurt.”

“You couldn’t ever really hurt me.” Lena props herself up on her free arm to get a good look at Kara’s face. Her expression morphs from blissed to concerned in a second.

“You’re crying.”

Her words bring to focus the hot tears on Kara’s cheeks. She wonders how long they’ve been there, stuck to her skin and to her eyelashes. “Oh.” Heart full, Kara reaches up and drags her thumb along the Lena’s cheekbone. She doesn’t want to keep talking, not really, not when there’s an infinite number of new ways they can be together. “It's just never felt like that before, that’s all.”

That’s the first time she says I love you, really, although at their wedding Kara tells of the other first time; at that spot on the beach, weeks later, a date completed. In all the ways that their story gets told, at a bar, at Alex’s dinner table, waiting in line at Target, nobody ever mentions this or the beach or the backseat of Lena’s car. Nobody else knows.

“Me either.” Lena says in that moment, preserved and kept truthful. “I’ve never felt that way either.” Kara grabs at the hem of the discarded blankets and in one pull has them up over their heads, protected. They stay that way for a long time after.


End file.
